Otilia and Gabita share the same room in a student dormitory. They are colleagues at the University in this small town in Romania, during the last years of communism. Otilia rents a room in a cheap hotel. In the afternoon, they are going to meet a certain Mr. Bebe. Gabita is pregnant, abortion is illegal and neither of them have passed through something like this before.
Opening with an arresting WWI trench battle, this details the return of soldier Manlache Preda to his village in Romania, where he finds his land had been possessed and his wife hasn't waited for him. It follows his subsequent relationship with the local squire - for the murder of whose uncle, in the 1907 peasant uprising, Preda had received a 10-year prison sentence - and his romantic attachment to the attractive, independent daughter of a fellow prisoner. It's competently directed and well shot, and many of its sequences, especially those involving the varied rural landscape, have an epic proportion. The melodramatic and eventually tragic adventures of the honourable peasant take on greater and greater symbolic significance.
Francesca is a young kindergarten teacher whose dream is to immigrate to Italy. Searching for a better life, Francesca is ready to overcome any obstacles, even the worries and the doubtfulness of the people closest to her. The plan is that her boyfriend, Mita, should join her in Italy as soon as he closes the small business he runs. Things take an unfortunate turn, painful truths come to light and priorities change. Written by Mandragora Movies
In this comedy-drama, Stephane (Romain Duris), a young man from France, travels to Romania on a mission; his father has recently passed away, and since the old man's favorite singer was an unrecorded gypsy vocalist from Romania, he has come to track her down and put her music on tape. However, he's not sure where she is, and as he wanders though a village in battered shoes on a cold night, an older gentleman of gypsy blood, Izidor (Isidor Serban) allows him to spend the night in his home after regaling him with drunken rants about his dire fate. While gypsies take a dim view of strangers, Stephane goes out of his way to ingratiate himself into their community, and as the locals develop a grudging trust for him, Stephane meets Sabina (Rona Hartner), a beautiful gypsy dancer whose allure is matched by her fiery personality and blunt vocabulary. Izador is Sabina's accompanying musician, and as Stephane is drawn into Sabina's web by the passion of both her dancing and her lovemaking, he also becomes friends with the older man and struggles to better understand his way of life. Director Tony Gatlif, himself of gypsy heritage, previously directed a documentary about gypsy musicians, Latcho Drom.
DIR Andrei Dascalescu
PROD Andrei Dascalescu, Roberto Blatt
SCR Andrei Dascalescu
DP Andrei Dascalescu
CAST Constantin Vinca, Elena Vinca
ED Andrei Dascalescu Constantin and Elena have been in love for 54 years. They live a simple life in a picturesque village in the northeast of Romania. They fill their days with chores in and around the house, going to church and receiving welcome visitors, not to mention a catnap every now and then. Everything that these two seasoned lovebirds do, they do slowly, from helping each other get dressed to weaving beautiful tapestries. Often they sing old Romanian songs at the top of their voices, or Constantin’s old fighting songs from his WWII army days. Constantin and Elena aren’t afraid of death, and discuss it in a practical way. They’re proud of what they’re leaving behind and happy with their love. But they do think it’s unfortunate that they have so little time left together. As Constantin puts it, “With one eye I cry, with the other I laugh.” Director Andrei Dascalescu, the couple’s grandson, filmed them over the course of a year, using long takes and a fixed camera. He notes, “The fixed camera is my way of observing. I let the viewer choose his place of interest. I don’t zoom or pan. I let everything happen. I think this style also gives dignity to my characters.” Constantin and Elena won the First Appearance Award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.
